Third Degree
by Glum n Dumb Skittery
Summary: [rated for mild slash, violence] Play with fire, get burned. Clef knew this day would come. [ONESHOT]


**A/N:** Return to the fandom**. All standard disclaimers apply.**

Return to the fandom. 

To the Third Degree

Clef knew this day would come.

They're sitting on a bench with stiff cushions that scratch the back of their thighs and leave fibers of ugly brown to curl between their clenched fingers. The walls are stark white and the air smells sterile, like antiseptic and lost hope. It is quiet except for the murmur of night nurses and the footsteps of doctors in head-to-toe scrubs. A hospital gives no comfort to the visitors who do not occupy its' technology and beds.

Umi, the girl with the brilliant aquamarine hair and eyes to match it, is at the edge of her seat, hunched forward, wringing her fingers to keep the blood flowing. Her best friend sits next to her, Fuu, blonde-haired and eyes the color of freshly cut grass. She sits with her back erect and her legs crossed. But the quiver of her shoulders betrays the strong front she's trying to put up. They're dressed in armor that they dismiss as a back-to-school costume party to the questioning glances of adults and their stethoscopes. Besides, Lantis and Presea in their respective regal outfits as high priest and artisan are conspicuous enough for the entire group, not to mention vertically challenged Clef and his ornate staff and flowing robes. They're an odd group, so intricately costumed, but their grief and prolonged shock penetrate the air around them, a shield and a cage.

They had been in Cephiro. Wonderful, beautiful, masochistically perfect Cephiro. There had been another monster, one of those rare, disenchanting beasts that rose from the doubts of the people of the land. And their pure, petite leader had faced it fearlessly, and there had been sadness in her eyes upon its defeat. There always was. Death of any creature, whether born of prayer or sin, left another mark upon her once untainted soul. That was how Clef had known. Cephiro's pillar only could take so much. It was always the same.

She'd summoned her Mars-blessed powers, the heat contracting deep within her chest until it was released outwards, traveling the lengths of her veins and flaring rapidly out through her outstretched fingers. It was a simple task, a novice spell for one so skilled.

But little Hikaru was and had been the Pillar of Cephiro for much longer than anyone had anticipated. As she'd sent herself to fight the monsters, had anyone really given their casual calls of luck and requests to hurry back much sincerity, they'd have noticed the way her cheeks had become slightly concave and gray-tinged, or the way her braid was coming undone at the bottom, usually tied so tightly in brightly colored string. Maybe they would have seen the glaze forming over her eyes from lack of sleep, or the limp in her left leg that came from anemia and the meals she hadn't been attending to.

That's why when the spell of fire was released, its summoner lost control. She hit the beast, yes, but from there her arms faltered and the flames no longer had a set direction. They lapsed around her and as she fell forward, it all came together to strike her at the small of her back, an explosion that left the air acrid, stained with the smell of burning flesh, and the anguished cry of a felled warrior woman.

The fairy, Presea, had found her first. They could not use Cephiro to heal her. Umi and Fuu were summoned to retrieve her, to bring her back to Tokyo. Night fell over the land of Cephiro as their Pillar slept on in the darkness pressing down on her where skin blistered and bled over her shoulder blades and down her vertebrae.

"It's still painless," the doctor with the rounded shoulders and long earlobes reassures the odd group, in their warrior costumes and play-pretend weaponry. "Third-degree burns destroy the nerve endings. She won't feel a thing until the skin starts to grow back. We'll have to keep her here for the entire process though, understand."

Clef worries for Cephiro's sake, even as Umi and Fuu nod their acceptance over this fact. They'll call the _dojo_ later, contact Hikaru's big brothers and let them take care of Hikari and worry over their little sister. But not just yet. Not while they can still give them the pretense that Hikaru is over at one of their houses, that she'll come home with a smile on her face and her back smooth and pale, her white, white shoulders strong and proud as they'd ever been. No. The two remaining Knights of Cephiro can't tell them yet. That would require a story. And such inventions would mean having to think, to rely on actual, tangible logic. They can't allow themselves such a burden. Not just yet.

A week later, Kakeru still hasn't forgiven his sister's friends. Masaru and Satoru are more understanding, but then Kakeru's the one who hasn't left Hikaru's side since they got the call. Satoru needs to watch over the _dojo_, and Masaru's got finals. Only Kakeru doesn't want to care about anything else.

So he sits in that hard, plastic chair and watches his baby sister, stiffly lying on her side, hospital gown untied to expose her bandaged back. She's deep under with the help of morphine and other pain killers. The IV in the back of her hand is a pale, raised bump against her baby pink skin. He holds her hand as though she were a glass _shinai_. And then, with the familiar metaphor, he can pretend that he is the _kendo_ master, and she his fragile sword. It's easier this way. They balance each other. Keep each other from flying apart and out of control.

She's only woken up once in a week, her tiny body too overwhelmed with the senses to do all else but sleep. "'_Niichan_," she'd whispered, her lips thin and face stark against the sheets. At least, he thinks, she recognized me. It is a small comfort.

"Hikaru had a make-up lab after school," the blonde had explained in that small voice of hers, hiding behind her glasses and fussing with her light-colored hair.

The other one, the one who looks like she could be a model, added to that. "We were supposed to go shopping." It was like they were making up a story on the spot. "Fuu was running late, but I stayed and helped her. It was my fault, I didn't read the label correctly. I gave Hikaru some bottle, I forget what it was called now. Then Fuu called, said she was having problems finding the classroom." That's right, those two went to different schools. "I went outside to meet her and then…"

At that point, both girls had broken down in to tears. Kakeru didn't have the heart to question their fabrications. Not even another week later, when he's still sitting there, having been going home lately only to shower, grab a few hours of sleep in an actual bed, and bring some of Hikaru's stuff back to the hospital. He drinks the facility's bitter coffee and eats their bland cafeteria food; he doesn't care. He only wishes he could bring Hikari along on one of these visits. The dog's driving his brothers up the walls, refusing to sleep anywhere but the foot of Hikaru's bed, barely eating anything without his mistress there to protect and entertain.

"Crazy dog," Kakeru mutters beneath his breath, scratching the back of his neck as he walks back down the hospital hall from the elevator, fresh from his first shower in two days and some sweet sustenance he'd picked up from the _panya_ along the way. Turning left at the end of the hallway into the last room, he's startled to find a slim woman keeping watch over his baby sister, letting her hold her hand as a nurse with dispassionate eyes, devoid of empathy, redresses her bandages.

He remembers the first time he'd been there for the scheduled redressing. Sometime during the night Hikaru had accidentally rolled onto her back, the pain bringing her to tears accompanied by audible, raw wails that couldn't be stifled. The bindings to her back had stuck to her peeled skin and the exposed layers beneath. They'd had to carry her to a tub with chilled water, letting her soak until the corners of the padding had curled; more skin still had fallen and wept blood.

That is why Kakeru is grateful, more than resentful, of this stranger's presence. She has kind, pale eyes and light hair pulled tightly back at the edge of her scalp, swept away from falling onto the sensitive nerve reactors of Hikaru's stretched skin. He waits in the doorway for the nurse to finish and leans into the wall when she's done. All the while, he can hear his sister's muffled whimpers and a single sharp intake of air, caught halfway through her throat in her anguished surprise. Involuntarily, Kakeru winces with her.

The strange woman, who looks out of place in a blouse and jeans that seem too loose for her frame, stays silent throughout, her fingers on one hand laced with Hikaru's tightly, both of their knuckles white with the effort, while the other catches the hot tears that manage to squeeze out and over the rims of her tightly shut eyes. Kakeru catches the small voice that his baby sister has become, whispering, "I just want to go home."

"I know," the woman whispers quietly back, brushing back flame-colored bangs from Hikaru's forehead, which is now dotted in beaded globes of sweat from the exertion of biting back the pain. A row of cool knuckles bumpily caress Hikaru's cheek for the briefest of moments and the caring motion combined with the significant sorrow in the woman's eyes cause an ache in Kakeru's chest.

"You need to stay here, though," she's saying. "We can't treat you at home like they can here. You need to rest and heal."

"But, Cephiro— "

"Will be fine. They will sleep, just as you do."

Cephiro? Is that some foreign student at Hikaru's school, wonders Kakeru. But even this thought is dismissed when he sees his precious sister's tiny hand reach out for the woman at her side, choking on her own sobs. That stranger catches the proffered limb in her own and leans down to kiss the back of the child's hand. Her lips linger, as though trying to capture and transmit the icy atmosphere around them and send it straight into Hikaru's blood, giving relief to the pinpricks of shredded heat that blossoms between the girl's shoulder blades and blemishes spots of char and crimson lower still.

Oh, he can feel himself mouth soundlessly. He recognizes the look that passes between his sister and the young woman. He's seen it in Masaru's eyes more than once, but it burns stronger in Satoru, though rarely outside of the family. It's love.

And then Kakeru has to wonder if this woman, who holds such a special place in his only sister's heart, has something to do with why she's in the hospital bed crying in the first place. Is that who her friends were really covering up for? And he's just about to barge in to the room, interrupting the tender moment, when a steely fingers clamp around his own wrist and he's being whirled around till his back is flat against the stark hallway wall, another hand falling over his mouth to silence the outbursts on the tip of his tongue.

Amethyst eyes that narrow into wet slits bore into his, irises that are touched with harsh millennia and more pain than any one being should bear both calm and terrify him. He tenses under the harsh hands and submits. "I can explain," the man says, and Kakeru has to force himself to stare at the pointed chin and not the cold, caged eyes. "But not here. Give them their moment, and I can explain."

Kakeru nods. He has no other choice.

That is how he finds himself on a bench outside the hospital, beneath a monkey pod tree in full bloom, shedding petals that are colored like sunset-palettes, blending pinks and yellows warmly, tears of fire.

"Cephiro is very dear to me — to all of us," the man starts to explain once they've gotten settled, after a long moment of hesitation.

"Who is Cephiro?"

"Not 'who,' — 'what.' Cephiro is the land that I come from. The land where your sister sustained her extensive injuries. Where she is… our leader."

Kakeru rises to leave, but the stranger's hand darts out once again, holding him in place. He is stronger than his short stature misgives. "Please, listen to me. My name is Clef and I am your sister's adviser and a guru of sorts in Cephiro. It does exist, you must understand. That is where your sister and her friends first met, and saved us all." His eyes lock with Kakeru's once more, binding him to the spot. "Don't you ever wonder where she always disappears to on what your world calls 'Sundays'? Doesn't it seem odd that she comes home weak and spends long hours meditating and yet is more drained following such sessions?"

"…What are you saying?"

"She is the Pillar of our world, boy. She is what keeps us all alive, sustains us. And because she exhausted herself, she injured herself with her own powers— "

"Powers?" The spell breaks. "Look," Kakeru starts, shaking his head, taking a step away and trying to get his words in check. "I don't know who you think you are, but you don't have to make up some crazy story just to convince me that Hikaru liking another girl is okay. I'm cool with it, I don't care. Just leave me alone, I'm going to see her and it'll all be all right."

"Kakeru. I'm telling you the truth."

The boy buries his fingers in his hair, inclining his head forward, pain shooting through his neck in what would soon be a migraine. A sigh of frustration, tinged with exasperation escapes his lips and it's a long while before he's able to look up again, a steady throbbing forming beneath the bone between his thickly knitted eyebrows. "OK," he says. "Let's say you _are_ telling me the truth, and for some reason I _do _believe you. What, then?"

It is Clef's turn to sigh, deep and sorrowful. "Then you must speak to Hikaru and reason with her to come back to Cephiro."

"And let her exhaust herself and get injured again or worse?"

"So you do believe me."

"I didn't say that."

"Time is of the essence, Kakeru. Cephiro can only remain in night for so long, and the demons of doubt and nightmares will manifest themselves. Cephiro will be destroyed and I cannot let that happen."

"Why! Because you say it's so? What about Hikaru!"

"That is why you must speak to her, Kakeru. It is ultimately her choice to make, but for the sake of the land, its people and Hikaru's conscience, she must come back. She is directly connected to the heart of Cephiro — she dies with it."

The young man struggles for words, feels those dark eyes on him again, unrelenting and bright. He feels the world pressing down on him, the sky's gravity shoving his spine inward, the clouds fogging his mind, the sun blinding him and his thoughts. He can feel the screams within him working their way up esophagus and voice box, and he's not sure he can suppress it. He shuts his eyes, counts to ten. "I gotta walk," he says, barely up to squeeze out the words, and only for the sake of the man and his solemnity.

And then his New Balance soles are pounding the pavement, striking cement and the occasional tuft of grass that pushes itself from the cracks, lone soldiers with the strongest of wills to live. He's running to he doesn't know where and he can feel his heart in his chest, his throat, his forehead, and he can't remember which is the anatomically correct place for it to be. There's a mad tea party going on in his ears, and he's not sure if there are actually sirens and car alarms and shrill bird cries that sound like tea kettle whistles going off around him. All he knows is that if what that man says is true, he still doesn't know what to do.

It's easy when it's only the Hikaru he knows, who is only a girl and not a "pillar." Then all he'd have to do is wait until enough skin grows back, piggyback her in her stiff hospital gown to the car and carry her to bed, stuffing her with ramen and the sweet strawberry cake she likes to nurse her strength back. But now, _now_… well, what can he do? Send her back to fight off the demons Clef is so afraid of? Pull her from the flames only to send her back into the fire?

No. Yes. NO NO NO. YES.

Which is right? Safe? TRUE?

Then he's standing in the doorway of Hikaru's room in the hospital, panting and sweat-soaked, and unsure of the "whys" and "hows" and he's not sure how much he cares for those answers anyway.

"_'Niichan_?" Hikaru's voice is small, surprised — and delighted. And then it takes on an entirely different tone, "Are you OK?"

He stares at her, keeps breathing heavily, and tells himself to snap out of it. He walks into the room, aware that the strange, light-haired woman from earlier is still there, sitting in the same seat, holding the same hand. Kakeru smiles at her in acknowledgment; she is neither unwelcome nor a threat. He takes a seat next to her and runs a large hand over Hikaru's face, causing her to smile gently, familiarly.

"I should be asking you that," he finally says, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, taking care not to let his digits catch on any part of her neck. "Holding up OK?"

"Mm," is the reply, followed with the shadow of a resolute nod. He knows it's only the changing of bandages that really kills her, making her grit her teeth so hard his own jaw hurts to see it. His face twitches in a wince at the unwelcome memory and he sees her frown and the sadness flood her eyes as she catches sight of it, like she always does.

"Niichan?" And then she's looking to the side, catching the other woman's eyes and then gasping softly. "I'm sorry. Niichan, this is Presea. Presea, Kakeru." They smile at each other again and shake hands lightly. Out of the corner of his eye, Kakeru catches the shy joy on his sister's face, plain as day. Yes, he thinks, I am happy for her.

But then that matter at hand comes back full force, battering at his skull with the next paroxysm-ridden wave the migraine brings. He wishes he hadn't remembered. The words spill out before he can even form them in his head. "Clef says Cephiro is in danger."

His baby sister's eyes widen considerably, and he sees too many emotions dart through those portals in that one moment. More than shock and confusion, there is grief and panic, despair, determination and fear. Kakeru doesn't stop to question it any longer: Cephiro does exist. Hikaru is their savior.

Then Hikaru does something he hadn't expected — and Kakeru always predicts his sibling's actions. Because suddenly she's pulling out her IV and trying to swing her legs over the side of the bed, crying out and dropping to her knees with such force that he can hear the impact of tile to skin. Even then, she gets on all-fours and tries to push herself up again and Kakeru isn't sure how to pick her up without hurting her back and nurses are rushing in and —

"Hikaru."

It is the first time he hears her speak in anything but a gentle tone to his sister; but the emotional attachment is still there, the unwavering devotion —love.

Presea kneels next to the girl, leaning over so far that the tips of her hair brush the ground and she's letting Hikaru fall into her, letting her arms grasp her waist and torso, but letting her hands linger only at his sister's hips, and even then completely parallel to each other, not so much to hold, as to place. "Hikaru," and there that voice commands again, but so much softer this time. "It'll be okay._ I promise_."

The last two words are spoken with a slight waver in the voice, but overrun with confidence, a fulfilling vow that holds, even when its tone cannot stay throughout. Hikaru seems to understand that, too, all Kakeru can see is her open hospital gown and the thick bandages that are soaked in liquids he doesn't want to identify. There are blisters that coil around beauty marks, and patterns of crisscrossing red welts that form idioms that could almost be "report," complexities that astound him. Deep down, he feels the nausea well in his abdomen and he finally notices that he hasn't moved from his chair.

But the girl, Presea her name was,was right there on the floor with Hikaru, and looking at her so adoringly, with not sympathy or pity, but reassurance. And Kakeru understands then, just how little his sister belongs to this world, now. She is no longer his to understand.

And the realization does something to him, as the nurses watch Presea help Hikaru to her feet and slide her sideways onto the bed, turning her hand white with loss of circulation when Hikaru grips it hard upon the barely there impact, the sensory overload from tile to cotton nearly causing her to black out. He feels it there, deep inside, like a void. No. Like a star suddenly going inside-out to form a black hole. No. That isn't it either. Because it isn't something disappearing, but rather forming.

Hikaru's wail is that of the child she is when the nurses push the IV needle back into her vein, the rush of liquids and chemicals back to giving her artificial life. Kakeru's chest contracts. Yes. He knows what it is. He knows those who play with fire can never truly be a part of it.

The third-degree burns on his heart tell him to let go.

**A/N: **And this is basically the last thing I shall be writing on FFN until December. NaNoWriMo awaits. Review, if you've got the time. Thanks for reading.


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